Robust Fault-Tolerant Formation Control for Multiple UAVs Under Bounded Actuator Faults

Abstract

AbstractTo improve the robustness and fault-tolerant ability of the multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) system under external disturbances and typical faults, the study of this paper considers the robust fault-tolerant control (FTC) problem of the formation cooperation, and proposes the robust fault-tolerant formation control method under bounded dynamic disturbances and actuator faults with the rotorcraft UAV (RUAV) as the controlled plant. For the formation control, with the dynamic decoupling of the RUAV, an outer guidance loop is designed based on the consensus method and leader-follower mode to achieve the formation reference tracking. For the robust FTC, an inner control loop is constructed and synthesized for the RUAV stability, and some linear matrix inequality (LMI) conditions are proposed for the robust fault-tolerance against bounded disturbances and faults of the controlled plant. Eventually, some simulation results are displayed to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method, and compare it with the common formation control.KeywordsRotorcraft unmanned aerial vehicleConsensus methodFormation controlRobust controlFault-tolerant control